The Woodbury Runaway
by PenguinWalker
Summary: She ran and never looked back, well that is until she made a deal with the Sheriff to bring back his people in exchange for the safety of her own. MerleXOc. Rated M for the normal Dixon related stuff. Future Romance and Sexual Humor.


Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Prologue

The moans grew louder as she stopped to lean against a tree. The woman had been running for almost an hour trying to outrun the herd and track her missing group at the same time. She winced with every breath she took, her breathing was labored but she knew she couldn't stop for too long.

Sensing another presence making its way towards her, the woman unsheathed her slightly dull sword.

"Die you dead fucker," she mumbled out before lifting the sword and spinning out from behind the tree. As she came out of hiding her sword connected with the thing's head, slashing it in too.

She grinned down at the dead body as the adrenaline pumped through her veins, however she moment was short lived as several more moans broke through the air.

"Oh, come on!" she mumbled again as three more things came into her line of sight. Her hand shot up to fumble with the beanie on her head as she tried to think of what to do next.

"Screw it," She spun on her heal again and darted through the trees at her top speed, her sword firmly in her hand as she prayed the things after her would disappear.

Their moans continued to bounce off the trees all around her; she could no longer decipher where the actual sounds were coming from. The blood pounded in her ears as she ran not slowing for a moment. The only evidence of her still breathing was the rapid pains in her ribs that came with every inhale and exhale.

Suddenly her face made contact with the ground. Since she was only looking forward she missed seeing the dead body she had just tripped over.

"The hell?" she kicked at the dead body making sure it was actually dead. She kicked the body over so that now she could see its face, which had been done in with a hammer.

"Ty." at this time she could assume that her group had gone this way. Her head snapped back and forth as she searched for anymore signs of the group she had commanded to go on without her in order to give them a fighting chance to escape the small herd that had snuck up on them back at camp.

Finally she spotted a body about twenty feet away.

"Left a damn trail," She smirked slightly to herself knowing that Tyreese had left the trail on purpose. "Black man knows what he's doin'." The moans were beginning to catch up with her as she jumped to her feet and began following the trail of corpses that she hoped would lead her to the group.

She followed the trail for another few minutes before stepping out of the woods. In front of her several of the undead lay on the ground, their heads bashed in, while several others stood trying to make their way over a fallen wall, wandered aimlessly around the area, or devoured the remains of the fallen.

She let out a sigh of relief knowing that she had most likely found the group's new hide out.

"Let's do this, bastards," she mumbled then let out a loud whistle and the things turned to find the sound in question "Alright, I've been runnin' all day and I'm sick an' tired of it". She took her stance and gripped her sword firmly as the decaying walking corpses began making their way towards her.

Once the things were only a few feet away from her she charged. Her sword slashed through head after head as she dodged several decaying hands. When she finished the few that had congregated around her only a few things were left standing in the field, somehow still oblivious to her presence.

She rolled her eyes at the oblivious as she sheathed her sword and walked over to the wall. Slowly she began to climb the fallen stones trying to be as quiet as possible so that to not alert anything to her presence.

Once over the wall she knew exactly where she was. The high walls of the prison surrounded her, the guard towers stood out against blue sky above and the barbed wire fencing that ran along the tops of the walls only confirmed her suspicions.

"Idiots," she mumbled. "This place's gotta be crawlin' with those things."

The women made her way to an open door that led into the back of the prison. One of her hands ran along the side of the wall, slowly guiding her through the dark corridors, her other coiled around the handle of her sword ready to unsheathe it at the first moment it was needed.

The smell of rotting flesh assaulted her nose as she continued her silent trek through the hallways. She continued on wondering until once again moans penetrated the still air around her. Before allowing them to get sight of her she turned and silently darted in the opposite direction. Noticing that certain hallways were occupied by things she began following the corridors that were already dotted with fallen creatures. More and more bodies began to appear along the hallways until she began to sense a pattern.

Someone had already cleared this section of the prison. Following the cleared paths she made her way through the prison until she heard voices. She slowed down and lowered into a crouch, unsheathing her sword and making her way closer to the voices. Slowly she peaked around the corner to see a woman with short hair murmuring to an older man with only one leg. A young boy sat on the ground, a gun within arm's reach of him and a deck of card sitting between him and a closed cell. Suddenly a dark hand shot out from the bars of the cell and reached for the boy's oversized sheriff's hat. The hand pulled the boy's hat off and out fell two Queens.

"I knew you were cheating!" the voice of the hand called out full of mirth. The woman's eyes widened, she knew that voice. Without thinking she took another step towards the door of the room. Suddenly the sound of a gun clicking filled her ear, her head snapped to the side and she found herself staring down the barrel of a shotgun in the shaky hold of a young blond girl.

"How did you get in here?" the girl asked, alerting everyone in the room of her presence. Both the short haired woman and the old man took defensive stances while the boy stood and pointed his own gun in her direction.

"Drop the sword." The young boy commanded. Instead of listening to the young boy, the woman stepped farther into the room and closer to where the dark hand had stuck out from. With both guns still trained on her, the woman shuffled closer to the locked cell and finally into the sight of the cell. Suddenly the clatter of sword hitting concrete filled the room as the woman dropped her weapon to the ground and strode over to the cell where dark hands shot out and pulled her towards the bars.

"Damn girl, I thought you were dead." Tyreese mumbled into the woman's hair while everyone else in the cell headed towards her with arms outstretched, all reaching for her.

"She's with us!" Allen called out to the others who still had their guns pointed to her head. "Lower your guns, she won't do anything, will you Lou-Lou?" his voice grew softer as he turned to question the young woman still wrapped in the black man's arms.

She moved enough to look back at the group, guns slightly lowered. She moved out of Tyreese's arms and slowly reached down to retrieve her sword from where it fell out of her hand. She shook her head in response to Allen's question and in one fluid motion sheathed her sword. Before anything else could be said another set of dark hands shot out from the cell and gripped the back of the woman's shirt dragging her back towards the bars.

"Crazy fucker!" Sasha growled at the woman. "If you ever do something that stupid again I will kill you myself."

"Couldn' kill me even if you wanted to bitch," the woman mumbled before snatching herself out of Sasha's iron grip then spinning around and pulling her into a tight hug through the bars. "Where's Donna?" The woman peered over the other's shoulder with no luck of locating the mentioned woman.

"She didn't make it," Ben answered her question in a soft, mourning voice. The woman's shoulders dropped as she shook her head in disbelief. She had risked her life and stayed behind so that they would have a chance to escape with their lives.

"What happened?" she asked but before anyone could answer the young boy spoke up.

"She got bit, what else? Now who are you and how did you get in here?" The young boy's gun was still gripped in his hand that was now dangling by his side but he was still ready to attack if need be.

"Carl," the woman with short hair warned the young boy; she didn't want any unnecessary conflict between the groups, especially with half of their group gone.

"Well Carl," the new woman turned towards the boy and gave him a little smirk. "Y'all got a busted down wall in the back. Dead can't get over it but any able person can."

"Answer the first question." This time it was the older man who spoke up.

"Louise," she mumbled, eyes darting back and forth between the strangers.

"Evening Miss Louise," the one legged man said politely as he limped a little closer. The older woman with short hair sidled closer to him, and Louise could now see a small knife griped in her hand. "Now we don't want no trouble."

"Neither do I," Louise answered quietly. She tapped against the bars of the cell that held her people in. "Why are they locked up like common criminals?"

"Trust me, they don't lock a pretty woman in the same cell as three men," said a dirty blond man that Louise just noticed. He must have been hiding in the one of the other open cells, and she tensed once she realized that he was dressed in a blue prison jumpsuit. "I don't think they mix men and women anyways. Not that it really matters in prison…"

"Please be quiet," the older woman with the knife hissed before turning back to Louise. "We've been through a lot and can't help but be a little cautious. We know your people just as well as you know us."

Louise's eyes darted from person to person, quickly analyzing them. A small boy and girl who looked to be in their teens; an old man on crutches and one less leg; a woman who appeared to mean business; and the suspicious guy who had most likely been in the prison. Her group had encountered more mix-mashed groups before, but this one didn't look desperate enough to kill them in the middle of the night.

She looked back into the cell and Tyreese, who stared back for a moment before silently. Louise returned her gaze to the strangers and said, "What'll it take to get them outta there?"


End file.
